Anyone that’s taken a trip to Brooklyn’s southern shore this spring has realized just how far Coney Island has fallen thanks to the villainy of “developer” Thor Equities and suspiciously major negotiation muck ups by the city. Astroland has been razed and Thor’s banners populate the ocean-side amusement area. [More...]

Still there is a flower blooming from the muck–the Village Voice’s Siren Music Festival returns for another free, all-day rock-a-thon on Saturday, July 18th.

We’ve all been there. You’re leisurely shopping around a store with nary a thought to purchase, when a slick haired, sharply-dressed type comes over with “the perfect jacket for your figure”. While you stutter and politely protest, he ignores your advances and continues to fit you for your garmet, pausing ever so slightly to nod in agreement at your fabulous garb. After he’s spent the last ten minutes fixing you up, he casually asks “So, how will you be paying?” and if you’re like most human beings with a conscious, you grasp for a quick fix — well, you weren’t really planning on buying anything today, really. But never underestimate the power of persuasion, little ones.

I got Ramit Sethi’s, a personal finance blogger gone book author, new read a few weeks back and had the pleasure of leisurely siphoning through it over the past few days. I will Teach You to be Rich – the book – like most financial know-hows doesn’t break any new barriers when it comes to basic financial principals. But let’s face it: personal finance isn’t nuclear science. A successful PF book teaches people how to implement these ideas into their daily routine and make them stick.

Remember a time when videogaming was a hobby regulated to snot-nosed little brothers who congregated in basements with his nerdy buddies to blow hour upon hour on Halo? With the rise of the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii, the hobby has crossed virtually every demographic and has solidified itself as a true mainstream past time.

With the job market still waiting to see the light of day, the class of 2009 is eyeing graduate school as their graduation date approaches. Along with these soon to be graduates, many new grads who are either out of work or looking to get a leg up on their competition are also signing up for the GRE.

In order to apply into an MBA program, most schools accepted the GMAT, not the GRE. The GMAT is specific in scoring a student based on their management skills that are learned both through work experience and school, while the GRE covers a range of subjects that are learned at the undergraduate level. It is apparent that these programs could be accepting the GRE in anticipation of more students applying right out of college or with little work experience.

That leads us to wonder, between the economy and more programs accepting the GRE, what will this do to the value of an MBA degree?

After moving to New York City four years ago, I fell into the common trap of feeling like I could participate in the city’s extravagance the way the rich and the coddled enjoy the city. Like many others that have traveled the road before me, I had to learn the hard way that I, unlike the numerous trust fund babies and bankers, did not have a Get Free pass into the city’s limitless playground for the wealthy. Once that realization sank in and I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I was able to settle in and enjoy the real New York City. That is, the one without all the flavor of the month restaurants with their $20 cocktails and over-obsessed neophytes.

Tickets for the Tribeca Film festival are currently on sale, but you don’t have to spend $15 a pop to take part of the activities that are happening around the city. We’re all about the low-cost living, so it was quite a pleasure to learn that the Tribeca Film Festival, indieWIRE, and Apple are teaming up to allow movie buffs to interact with some of film’s brightest stars at the Prince St. Apple Store–for free!

The Job Search Central is located in the lower level of the Science, Industry and Business Library on Madison and 34th Street. Job seekers can also get one-on-one job coaching and career counseling or small business consultations, all free of charge.

From ordering pizza to shopping for great deals, I might as well have a credit card machine attached to my laptop.

As part of a generation that couldn’t imagine what it was ever like without computers, I hold the same amount of trust in my lap top now that I did in my security blanket at the age of five.

We’re told over and over again to be careful when it comes to online purchases, but how many of us truly follow that rule? With the economy in the toilet, there’s a good possibility that someone out there is trying to steal your information even more than before.

In the mood for laid-back after work event with an educational twist? Look no further. Sycamore Bar in in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn is hosting this week’s twice monthly meetup for Solar One – New York City’s first solar-powered Green Energy, Arts and Education Center. Come out, have a beer, mingle, and ask the Solar One experts solar related questions.